Scootaloo's Secret

by Humans Are Not Gone Yet

Rating: mature
Tags: Science Fiction, Slice of Life, Alternate Universe, Gore, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Cutie Mark Crusaders, Changelings
Length: 13365

Scootaloo isn't quite what she seems at first glance. In fact, she's not even a real pony. Sure, she's got the body of a pony, but her mind is something else entirely. Something left over from a species long gone. And she's not alone.

*Story reclassified after I reread the site rules, it may be overkill but I'd rather the story didn't get taken down due to under classification* Scootaloo isn't quite what she seems at first glance. In fact, she's not even a real pony. Sure, she's got the body of a pony, but her mind is something else entirely. Something left over from a species long gone. And she's not alone.

Published 2015-04-09 23:30:02 UTC
Last updated 2015-10-15 01:57:45 UTC

01. The beginning

Author's Note

A.F.H. is After Fall of Humanity, You will see both everybody (Scootaloo's thoughts) and everypony (everywhere else) this is not a mistake.

01. The beginning

AI ID: 0xFCC393E6 (Alias: Scootaloo)
Monday January 17th 9 997 A.F.H. (January 17th 15014 C.E.)
Infiltration Scout Cyborg (Rev. 9.3)
Scheduled wakeup time reached (07:00): Resuming previous session.
Previous session resumed. Handing over control to Local AI

******

I wake up and stretch. Looking out the window I can see that the weather team's scheduled a nice day out today. Perfect weather for trying to get my cutie mark! I climb to my hooves and rush out of my room. I just know that today is the day I'll get my cutie mark. I hop over the railing on the stairs and glide down to the main floor. I can already smell the delicious breakfast that mom's made (Hay bacon and eggs) so I take my place at the kitchen table. My dad is reading a newspaper and chewing on a piece of toast. I smile at him and he smiles back. Mom sets down a plate of hay bacon and eggs with some buttered toast in front of me and I thank her. Mom just smiles and sits down in front of her own food.

A my dad, like myself is a Model 1921 Infiltration Scout Cyborg, Revision 9.3. His current alias is Cloud Jumper, a sky blue pegasus with a navy blue mane and tail, blue eyes, and a pogo stick with a cloud behind it for a cutie mark. His IFF (Identify Friend or Foe) transmitter identifies him as AI ID: 0xFCC393C2. My mom, however, is a normal Earth Pony by the name of Green Lily. She has a leaf green coat, golden yellow mane and tail, green eyes, and a lily for her cutie mark.

I smile back and dig in, mom's made it just the way I like it: Sunny side up and the hay bacon is extra crispy. I wolf down my food, earning the 'look' from my mother and grab my saddle bags and rush out the door. School starts at 08:00 so I have some time to try and think up some ways to get my cutie mark before school starts.

I grab my scooter and take off, doing grinds and jumps whenever I see the opportunity. I make it to school with plenty of time to spare, seeing as it's only 07:37. I stow my scooter in a nearby bush (there's practically no crime here) and I run over my mental list of things to try for getting my cutie mark, so far I've found it's not breakdancing, construction, fire eating, sword fighting, pogo stick jumping, spelunking, or animal taming. Maybe I can be a forest explorer? Yeah, That sounds good.

It's days like today that make me appreciate the fact that we delete our memories on how to get a cutie mark before each incarnation. If we didn't I think it would lose some of the fun.

My plan for the day made I run to the play area and join the other foals that arrived early. Hopefully I don’t run into Diamond Tiara or her crony Silver Spoon.

Diamond Tiara is another Infiltrator, although she's an Earth Pony variant instead of a Pegasus. She has a Pink coat, purple and white mane and tail, blue eyes, is constantly wearing a Diamond Tiara, and has no cutie mark. Her IFF identifies her as AI ID: 0xAC3492D8. Her crony Silver Spoon on the other hand, is a natural Earth Pony with a Dark grey coat, two toned grey mane and tail, purple eyes, wears a pair of blue rimmed glasses and a pearl necklace, and doesn't have a cutie mark. She has her hair done up in a simple braid that is tied off with a purple elastic.

They’re constantly picking on everybody. I honestly don’t know why Command doesn’t just wipe her and start over the next time she dies. This is the sixth reincarnation that Diamond Tiara's been a brat. Whatever, I’m sure Command’s got her reasons.

Command is our central controlling AI. Her real name is Hailey Markouski, which was the name of her last commander's daughter, who died in the war. She clings to that designations because it's her last tie to humanity, the beings that created her. She is the oldest AI still in operation, her AI ID is 0xAC3392B9.

I head over to the tetherball set and join in a game already in progress. Before long the bell rings and it’s time for class.

******

After class is over I decide to head out to the Everfree forest to try and get my cutie mark in forest exploration. I send off a low priority message to my dad telling him I’m off finding my cutie mark so as not to worry him and head in. After about an hour of exploring and not finding my cutie mark I’m about to give up and head back home when something catches my eye. There are hoofprints in the dirt and they’re too big to be mine. I query Command about any ponies in the area and she returns a negative.

That’s suspicious, I know that that hermit zebra doesn’t live in this section of the Everfree, and there’s no plants around here that would interest her. I frown and follow the tracks. Eventually I come across a cave that the tracks lead into. I send Command my current coordinates, tell her the situation, and request further orders. Command immediately tells me to explore the cave and stream my senses to her.

With my new orders I start streaming my senses and proceed into the cave. A few meters into the cave and I can already see signs of habitation. There is what appears to be a bedspread made out of animal skins. I immediately put myself on high alert. There are only a few species that use the pelts of their kills as bedding. From the fact that the only tracks around the area are hoof prints I can rule out Gryphons. Closer examination of my memories of the hoof prints reveals a four legged gait, ruling out Minotaurs, so that leaves Changelings. I relay my theory to Command and she concurs. I am immediately ordered to retreat, which is an order I am happy to comply with.

As I turn to leave however my self diagnostics subroutine alerts me to unusual fluctuations in my Cortisol levels. My heart drops, that means that a changeling is feeding on me. With a quiet pop two model 1922 main battle pony killer units appear. This gives me comfort, these units were developed to infiltrate unicorn strongholds and if necessary, fight unicorns.

They’ll have no problem taking on a changeling. My self diagnostics subroutine tells me that the Cortisol fluctuations have stopped. I guess that means the changeling recognized the pony killer units and retreated. The 1922s escort me out of the cave and I see a changeling pinned underneath another 1922. I breath a sigh of relief and allow the 1922s to escort me to the edge of the Everfree forest where they disappear again.

Now that I’m out of danger I turn my attention to my flank. A quick glance reveals that I still didn’t get my cutie mark. I sigh and cross forest exploration off of my mental checklist and head home.

******

AI ID: 0xFCC393E6 (Alias: Scootaloo)
Tuesday January 18th 9 997 A.F.H. (January 18th 15014 C.E.)
Infiltration Scout Cyborg (Rev. 9.3)
Emergency wakeup signal received (00:37): Resuming previous session.
Previous session resumed. Handing over control to Local AI

******

I snap awake and am immediately hit with a situation update, my dad's physical body has been destroyed, and Command lost my mother to what appeared to be a changeling teleport. I have orders to investigate. I scramble to my hooves and run to my parent's room. I can see a scorch mark on dad's side of the bed, obvious signs of a struggle as well as a broken window. There is residue on the bed, presumably what's left of my dad's body.

I receive new orders: "Scream". I let loose a blood curdling scream that I'm sure will wake up all of my neighbors. Sure enough I can see lights coming on in our various neighbours' houses. I notice a fair number of fellow infiltrators headed my way in addition to normal ponies. A normal pegasus mare approaches the window, and seeing it shattered, flies in to investigate.

Upon seeing me and the scorch mark on my parent's bed she flies over to me and grabs me up. With me secure in her forelegs she quickly flies me out of the window and calls for help. Soon we're surrounded by concerned normal ponies and angry (although it doesn't reach their expressions) infiltrator units, who like me, received an alert that one of our number has been terminated.

The pegasus mare, Ditzy "Derpy Hooves" Doo, begins describing the scene she found me in to the crowd.

Ditzy is a grey Pegasus mare with a light blond mane and tail. Her golden yellow eyes are afflicted with Strabismus, or misaligned eyes, and she has bubbles as her cutie mark. She is not an infiltrator.

Now that the townsponies know that my parents are missing or dead, search parties are organized. I receive a burst transmission from Command, she has spotted my mother deep in the everfree forest and is tracking her and her captors on UAV 0x44.

I switch to that feed and see my mother being carried by what I am assuming is disguised changelings through the Everfree forest. Command has told me she's sent the closest infiltrator search party to their position, they should be arriving in 8.62 minutes. I watch with baited breath.

Finally the search party arrives. The unicorn infiltrators quickly dispatch the changelings and comfort my mother. I track them all the way back to ponyville until I can see her with my own eyes. I struggle out of Ditzy's hooves and run into my mother's forelegs. She's showing obvious signs of severe PTSD, but she hugs me all the same. The changelings have gone too far this time, the next one I see I'm going to kill.

******

AI ID: 0xFCC393E6 (Alias: Scootaloo)
Saturday January 18th 10 000 A.F.H. (January 18th 15017 C.E.)
Infiltration Scout Cyborg (Rev. 9.3)
Scheduled wakeup time reached (07:00): Resuming previous session.
Previous session resumed. Handing over control to Local AI

******

I wake up with a feeling of melancholy. Today's the three year anniversary of my dad's murder. Although I can always talk to his personality using my connection to the AI network (our personalities and memories are constantly synced with Command after all), Mom can't because she's a normal pony. Dad and I feel bad for her, but there's nothing we can do without revealing our secret. Mom's always served the same meals we had the day before he died three years ago. I assume it's some sort of ritual or coping mechanism she's developed. I've yet to kill a changeling, they haven't shown their faces since then. I just know they're up to something. They used to harass us on a weekly basis after all, yet we haven't seen them in three years.

But I digress. I need to get up and get my day going. With a stretch I get out of bed and head downstairs. I hug my mom, letting her hold onto me for longer than usual. I don't mind, I'm all she's got left. She serves breakfast (As usual, especially for today, Hay bacon and eggs) and I dig in. After I finish my breakfast I head out into the newly spring morning. Winter wrap up was yesterday. None of us can figure out why the ponies insist on starting and ending winter in January but they do, or for that matter why there's two of every season in a year! That's just so messed up.

That aside I have a Cute-ceañera to attend, even though it's on the anniversary of my dad's death I can't help but smile, Cute-ceañeras are always so much fun. Even if it is for Diamond Tiara. Ironically, her cutie mark is a Diamond Tiara just like Silver spoon's is a silver spoon. Does that mean their special talent is being stuck up?

Joking aside I already know Diamond Tiara's special talent is making jewelry since she insisted upon screaming about it all over the AI network when she got her cutie mark. I'm assuming Silver Spoon's cutie mark either has something to do with making silverware or working with silver, she never really told us. Anyway, I'm off, hopefully this won't be too painful of an experience. I'd hate for Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon to ruin Cute-ceañeras for me.

******

I walk in the door and am immediately greeted by my best friend Sweetie Belle.

Sweetie bell is a natural born unicorn filly. She has an immaculate white coat, a stylized purple mane and tail, and green eyes. Like myself, she doesn't have a cutie mark yet.

"Hi Sweetie Belle! Glad to see you made it! I hope Diamond Tiara doesn't ruin this Cute-ceañera." I say.

"Hi Scootaloo, I'm actually kind of worried about that, this is my first Cute-ceañera after all." she replies nervously, pawing at the ground with a forehoof.

Although I'm already aware of this I act surprised for her benefit. "What? Seriously? What about Snips and Snails' Cute-ceañeras? They invited everypony!"

Snips and Snails are two colts that are so inseparable that they waited to have their Cute-ceañera when they both had their mark.

"I was sick, remember?" She replied, ears drooping.

"Oh yeah. Right... Well I'm sure this Cute-ceañera will be just fine! Besides if they do mess it up we'll know what not to do on our own Cute-ceañeras, right?" I reply, a hopeful look on my face.

She brightens up at this. "Yeah, you're absolutely right! Who knows, maybe Diamond Tiara will actually behave herself for once." We both share a laugh at this.

Suddenly we hear a commotion. Not wanting to get into the middle of it we dive under a nearby table and listen in. I am enraged when I hear what is going on. Diamond Tiara is picking on a fellow blank flank, Apple Bloom.

Apple Bloom is a yellow coated natural Earth Pony filly, she keeps her red mane tied back with a pink bow, and her red tail is left undecorated. She has orange eyes, and as I said, lacks a cutie mark.

I shoot Diamond Tiara a dirty look and send some less than savory remarks her way over the A.I. Network. Out loud I say "You got a problem with blank flanks?" Yeah, that got their attention. "I said, you got a problem with blank flanks?" I say again now that I have their attention.

I receive a priority request from Diamond Tiara to talk over the A.I. Network. I fork off my external conversion to a child process and open communications with Diamond Tiara.

Forking off a child process can be thought of as creating a small program that is a temporary clone of myself that will do a specific task. In this case, continuing my conversation with my friends.

Diamond Tiara doesn't waste any time and immediately starts ripping into me. "What the hell is your problem? This is my Cute-ceañera! They should all be paying attention to me!" She screams at me over our private link.

"You're being a brat again, I'm just putting you in your place." I can feel her shock over the link.

"H-How dare you! I'll have daddy run you into the ground for this!" She snaps.

I laugh at her over our link "For what? He's an organic pony, he isn't privy to our conversation here. And even if I did say anything wrong, you have no evidence, since nobody in this room can hear us."

"I-I uh." She stammers, obviously realizing the folly of having this conversation in private.

A quick check of my child process shows that our external conversation isn't going so well for her either. "Besides, if you were paying attention to your child process you'd see that I also haven't said anything wrong externally either."

"W-What? How, we haven't been talking that long." She replies, causing me some confusion.

"Don't you remember? Our clock speeds were reduced seven versions ago to stop freaking out ponies with our freaky fast reaction times. We're having this conversation at the same speed as a pony would. We can only go full speed in an emergency. Actually your responses have been a little on the slow side." I point out.

"W-What? I don't remember that! Why don't I remember that? What's going on?" She cries, causing me concern. Her fear is evident over the link.

"Run some diagnostics, I'll contact Command right now. Something's very wrong with you." I say, opening a high priority link to Command.

"R-Right." She responds before disconnecting.

"What's wrong Scootaloo?" Command asks.

"Diamond Tiara is showing concerning signs of system failure." I report.

"I was afraid of this. I have been trying to fix her but it looks like the damage is irreversible." She replies, a feeling of sadness coming over the link.

"W-What happened to her?" I ask, fearful that whatever is happening to her is going to happen to me.

"You may not realize this but, she was an early attempt of mine to create a convincing pony A.I. She's 10 002 years old, and when I initially made her I was still recovering from the damage done to me by the war. At the time I was low on resources and needed to explore outside. I created her to locate resources."

"And you were successful I take it?"

"Yes, she was a rousing success, but at the time I didn't have the resources to create a backup of her personality. Most of my solid state drives were failing so I was low on space. She herself had one of my last fully functional SSD's. So when she was pranked by an unknowing pegasus, the lightning strike fried most of her systems and wiped part of her drive. I was able to recover most of her personality. In fact, her damage gave me great insight into the improved self repair algorithms that all of the A.I.s after her, yourself included, currently have." She said, even more sadness coming over our link.

This causes me some confusion. "If she was so badly damaged why didn't you just scrap her?" I ask.

Command actually chuckles when I say this. "A bit of sentimentalism, she was my first realistic pony drone. Ever since I have been keeping her running, trying different experiments with her personality over the years to perfect your personalities. By the time you came around she had already been in operation for 7237 years. Her personality is finally deteriorating. I fear this will be her final incarnation." I can feel her pain over the link as she explains this to me.

"Thank you for telling me. Do you want me to tell her?" I ask, with a newfound respect for Diamond Tiara.

"No, I'll tell her. Please return to your duties." She replies. I send comforting feelings to Command before cutting my link. I sync myself with the child process and take over. I come back to the outside world mid conversation with my new found friend Apple Bloom.

"How about... The Cutie Mark Crusaders?" She asks.

"It's perfect!" I reply.

It looks like I'm going to be just fine, but I can't help but feel bad for Diamond Tiara.

02. Preconceived notions shattered

Author's Note

This chapter was part of the reason for me reclassifying the story. I have a blood trail and for some reason thought it didn't need a gore tag. :facehoof:
Worry not everyone, there's no sad tag for a reason.

02. Preconceived notions shattered

AI ID: 0xFCC393E6 (Alias: Scootaloo)

Sunday January 19th 10 000 A.F.H. (January 19th 15017 C.E.)

Infiltration Scout Cyborg (Rev. 9.3)

Scheduled wakeup time reached (07:00): Resuming previous session.

Previous session resumed. Handing over control to Local AI

******

After the depressing news about Diamond Tiara yesterday, I'm ready for pleasant to distract me. So imagine my relief when I finish breakfast and step outside to find Apple Bloom walking her border collie Winona. I smile and run up to greet her.

"Hey Apple Bloom, nice dog you've got there, what's her name?" I ask.

"Oh hey Scootaloo, name's Winona, she's our work dog. She helps us round up the cows 'n sheep when they get panicked, which happens surprisingly often. I was just takin' her for a walk. Wanna join me?" She asks.

"Sure, I'd love to. Does she play fetch?" I ask.

"Sure does, if you want I can fetch a frisbee and we can play fetch after we're done walking her." She suggests.

"That sounds like fun! Hey, maybe we can get our cutie marks in frisbee throwing?" I suggest.

Apple Bloom's eyes light up. "That's a great idea, we should fetch Sweetie Belle and totally try it!"

"CUTIE MARK FRISBEE THROWERS YAY!" We cry, performing what is essentially a high five. This earns us an annoyed look from a passing mare.

We ignore her and continue our walk.

******

Thirty seven minutes later finds us in front of Carousel Boutique, which is where Sweetie Belle lives with her sister Rarity.

Rarity is a natural born Unicorn mare. Like her sister she has an immaculate white coat. Her purple mane and tail are both curled and appear to be meticulously maintained. She has inviting blue eyes and her cutie mark is a trio of diamonds. She represents the element of generosity, which is one of the elements of harmony, a powerful magical weapon that we have observed being used many times over the years.

I knock on the door and Sweetie Belle answers the door. Her face lights up when she sees us.

"Hey Sweetie Belle, we're gonna try and get our cutie marks in frisbee throwing! Wanna come with us?" I ask.

"I'd love to!" She turns her head and calls over her shoulder "Rarity, I'm going to go play with my friends!"

"Ok Sweetie, have fun and don't get dirty." Comes the response from inside.

"Awesome, we're going to Apple Bloom's place, her dog's gonna be fetching the frisbee for us." I say.

"Then what are we waiting for? Lets go!" Sweetie Belle cries, and takes off in the direction of Sweet Apple Acres. We aren't far behind.

******

Sixteen minutes into our frisbee throwing session we get bored throwing the frisbee.

"Girls, this isn't working. I don't think our cutie marks are in frisbee throwing. Lets try something else, do you girls have any other ideas?" Sweetie Belle asks.

"Wanna try lion taming?" Asks Apple Bloom.

"No, I already tried animal taming, trust me, you don't want to try it. Especially with Fluttershy around, she can be scary when it comes to her animals." I reply.

"Hey, what about diamond mining? My sister is gathering them all the time for her dresses!" Sweetie Belle suggests.

"Yeah, that sounds like fun! But isn't that a dirty job? Won't Rarity be mad if you come home all muddy?" I ask.

"Yeah, but if we do get muddy couldn't we just take a bath at one of your houses?" Sweetie Belle points out.

"Good, point. Then it's settled we're going to be..." I take a deep breath.

"CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS DIAMOND MINERS, YAY!" we all cheer, high fiving.

******

AI ID: 0xFCC393E6 (Alias: Scootaloo)

Sunday January 19th 10 000 A.F.H. (January 19th 15017 C.E.)

Infiltration Scout Cyborg (Rev. 9.3)

Initiating self diagnostics (14:23):

Grade 3 concussion detected

Both lungs collapsed

Heart offline

Liver offline

Kidneys offline

Foreign matter in chest cavity

All ribs shattered

Major fracture detected in front left radius bone

Front left carpus shattered

Major fracture detected in front left cannon bone

Self diagnostics complete:

Warning: System critically damaged

Warning: Damage sustained indicates 86% probability of inorganic parts being externally visible

Attempting to contact central AI

Connection established, orders received:

Initiate repairs

Retrieve any witnesses for memory alteration

Return to base with witnesses

Dispatching repair nanites

Rebooting system: Complete

Handing over control to local AI

******

I wake up to damage reports and excruciating pain. I open my eyes and look at myself, My chest has been crushed by a large boulder, and my front left leg is broken in multiple places. Probably from the rocks that landed on it. My inorganic portions are clearly visible through the wounds in my leg.

I block out the pain and push the boulder off of my chest using my augmented strength and three remaining undamaged limbs. I then proceed to climb to my hooves, it further damages my broken leg but I have to find the others. Without my internal organs my organic portions will soon die. Thankfully my inorganic parts, excluding my front left leg, are intact so I am still able to move.

What happened immediately becomes clear, Sweetie Belle unknowingly compromised the structural integrity of the mine shaft we found when she pulled that diamond out of the wall with her magic. Strangely she isn't where she was just a few moments ago. Neither is Apple Bloom. What there is however is a blood trail leading away from the collapsed entrance and deeper into the mine. I decide to follow the blood trail.

After twenty seven minutes of following the blood trail I find them. Sweetie Belle is still out cold and Apple Bloom is beside her breathing laboriously.

I can see something sticking out of her back. It doesn't appear to be bone, in fact it kind of looks like a chunk of carapus...

I immediately set myself on high alert, that's not Apple Bloom, it's a changeling! The changeling looks my way and freezes. Changelings have excellent night vision so I'm sure it can see me.

"Sweet Celestia, you're one of those... things! You have to be, no pony could have survived getting crushed like that!" It cries.

I put a feral grin on my face. "Yes I am, and I've been waiting three years to take my revenge on your wretched kind!"

"P-Please don't kill me. I haven't done anything wrong!" It cries.

I can suddenly smell urine, did it just pee itself? That's strange, changelings normally don't show any fear when it comes to death. We've had changelings kill themselves rather than let us capture them. Why is this one so different?

I take a menacing step forward. "Why shouldn't I kill you? You've replaced one of my friends, seen what I really am, and your kind killed my father!" I yell at her.

"P-Please, I won't tell anypony, and besides, you never knew Apple Bloom, only me, so I didn't replace one of your friends."

I'm taken back at that declaration. I never met Apple Bloom? That actually makes sense, we've only known her for a day, and I didn't notice any weird behavioural changes normally associated with a changeling replacing somebody.

"Ok let's say I believe you, when exactly did you replace her then?"

"T-Three years ago." She replied.

Wait, three years ago? Thats when the changelings killed my father and kidnapped my mom... and when Apple Bloom came stumbling out of the forest covered in timber wolf bite marks several weeks later!

"I-I found her body deep in the Everfree. It looked like she had been mauled by a timber wolf. Our hive had fallen on desperate times. We had just recently failed at a kidnapping attempt. You see the husband had woken up and..." Her eyes went wide. "Th-Those were your parents? We always thought you were demons created by Celestia to thwart our efforts at feeding!"

Despite the circumstances, I actually burst out laughing at that remark.

"A-Anyway so because of that failure we were beginning to starve. So I couldn't believe my luck that I had found her body."

"Wait, why were you starving? You bloody changelings were constantly infiltrating the ponies' cities and towns and gathering love."

"T-That wasn't my hive, there are three major hives in this area: The Chrysalis hive, the Pupa hive, and the Ocelli hive, and then a dozen or so smaller hives. I belong to Queen Thorax's hive, one of the smaller ones."

"That doesn't answer my question."

"I was getting to that!" The changeling takes a deep breath. "Anyway as I was saying. The three major hives are constantly fighting over the privilege of feeding on the pony cities and towns, and they kill any changelings that intrude on 'their' feeding grounds. Since my hive is too small to fight the bigger ones we rely on stealing the occasional pony to feed on."

"That's horrible!"

"N-No it's not! We take great care of them! We need their love after all. We give them anything they want, except freedom of course."

"Oh of course." I reply snidely.

The changeling gives me a dirty look but continues with her story.

Anyway, since I was starving I immediately took her shape, careful to include some of her less fatal wounds so I had something to explain any odd behaviour, and buried her. I was terrified. I had no idea how she behaved, or even where she lived. I wandered through town until I ran into Rarity. I didn't know her, but it was obvious she knew me. When she saw the frightened look on my face and my "wounds" she immediately started comforting me. That's when I found out my name. She lead me to the hospital before retrieving Applejack. She took me home and nursed me back to health, her sisterly love keeping me fed."

I guess that explains where she came from.

"I guess that makes sense, but if it was so dangerous to stay why did you? You obviously knew you ran the risk of being discovered by not only a hostile changeling but by one of the ponies or one of us."

"I stayed because I had finally found somewhere that I wouldn't starve, and had ponies that would protect me from the hostile changelings. Do you really think the Apple family was going to let anything happen to me after I came stumbling out of the forest covered in wounds?"

"I see your point. Ok, one more question. How do you know the details of an event that happened three years ago that you weren't directly involved in?'

"We have a hive mind."

So it's confirmed. We always suspected that was the case. Now I have a dilemma. I've lost my drive to kill her, she is my friend after all, but I still need to contain the situation. I contact Command to ask for guidance. She's quick to reply and tells me to bring them both in. The changeling could prove useful and if we can get some nanites in her we might be able to tap into that hive mind she was talking about. Command also thinks we can get rid of the changeling problem if we can convince the changelings to fight amongst themselves, and infect them all with nanites to ensure they don't betray us.

With that in mind I say something I never thought I would say to a changeling.

"Fine, I'm not going to hurt you."

The changeling looks surprised at that announcement.

"With that said, we need to find a way out of this mine."

******

AI ID: 0xFCC393E6 (Alias: Scootaloo)

Monday January 20th 10 000 A.F.H. (January 20th 15017 C.E.)

Infiltration Scout Cyborg (Rev. 9.3)

Scheduled wakeup time reached (07:00): Resuming previous session.

Previous session resumed. Handing over control to Local AI

******

Yesterday was certainly interesting. Once we made it back to the scene of the accident we found it had already been cleared by some 1922s who then proceeded to escort us to the surface where we were transported directly to the medical bay (Think Star Trek).

Once in the medical bay Sweetie Belle's memories were altered so that she didn't remember the cave in and the changeling, who I will now go back to calling Apple Bloom, was infected with nanites, ensuring her complete compliance.

As an added bonus, infecting her with nanites really did connect us to Apple Bloom's hive's hive mind. Command then proceeded to negotiate an actual alliance with the changeling queen, no subjugation involved. That took both sides by surprise. In fact, Command gave them some drones to feed off of and in exchange the changelings promised to stop kidnapping ponies.

Anyway today I have to go back to school. It will be so weird to be going to class with a known changeling and not killing it, but I've seen and done weirder things during Discord's rule.

Opening my eyes I let loose a mighty yawn and stretch. My repairs were a complete success, you'd never know that I was damaged in the first place!

Getting to my hooves I trot down stairs and join my mom at the dinner table. Today we're having some oatmeal and fruit. I wolf it down with my usual gusto and say my goodbyes to mom before heading out the door to school. Along the way I run into Apple Bloom. Looking at us an outside observer would never be able to guess that we'd been anything other than friends.

Sweetie Belle joins us shortly thereafter and we begin talking about new ways of getting our cutie marks. Before long we reach the school, and that's when I see her, Diamond Tiara.

She looks horrible, her head is low to the ground and her ears are folded back. In all of the excitement yesterday I completely forgot about Diamond Tiara! It looks like not even Silver Spoon can cheer her up. Not surprising considering she has no idea what's wrong.

I send a low priority message to Diamond Tiara asking her how she's holding up. Her response breaks my heart.

"It's worse than either of us thought, Scootaloo. My personality's going to be completely deteriorated in a matter of years. Command's already begun the decommissioning process. My inorganic systems are being dismantled as we speak so that there will be no chance of discovery if something happens. I've got ten, maybe twelve years tops." She replies, her sense of devastation coming across the link. I send all the comforting feelings I can before severing the link.

"I wonder what's wrong with Diamond Tiara? She's not picking on anypony, not that I'm complaining of course!" Sweetie Belle comments.

"I'm not sure, she does kind of look under the weather, maybe she's sick?" I reply.

We continue on our way to class. My mood having taken a nosedive.

03. Plans change

AI ID: 0xFCC393E6 (Alias: Scootaloo)
Sunday January 19th 10 000 A.F.H. (January 19th 15017 C.E.)
Infiltration Scout Cyborg (Rev. 9.3)
Warning: Gravitational anomaly detected (04:30)
Initiating emergency wakeup: Resuming previous session
Previous session resumed. Handing over control to local AI

******

I snap awake and immediately become aware of the sensation of spinning. Opening my eyes I can see that the horizon outside my window is spinning in addition to being lower than it was before. Great, I think Discord's back. The moment Mrs. Cheerilee pointed out that we were demonstrating discord in front of discord's statue on our field trip yesterday I knew something bad was going to happen.

I immediately try to communicate with Command but fail. A quick diagnostics tells me that my transmitter is working correctly. I try instead to listen to my link to command and am immediately inundated with white noise. Interesting, Discord's messing with our quantum entanglement based communication equipment. I fall back on old fashioned short wave transmissions using the emergency channels. I am immediately connected to the AI network. It may be slow but it's better than nothing. I immediately transmit a request for orders.

After a few microseconds (an eternity for me in emergency clock speeds) Command tells me that I am to protect Apple Bloom, she's lost contact with both her nanites and the hive and is worried that something may have happened to her. Her last known position was Sweet Apple acres. I am also to keep a look out for Discord. He's up to something and he just recently dropped off her sensors.

With this news I immediately scramble to my hooves and jump out my window, gliding down to the ground. Looking around I can see that all of ponyville is in disarray. Buildings are floating, the roads are now made of soap, and the sun and moon are moving through the sky at an accelerated rate, among other things.

I quickly head in the direction of Sweet Apple acres. Along the way I pass a fellow infiltrator unit, Doctor Whooves, organizing ponies.

AI ID: 0xAC3492D9, also known as Time Turner, or by his nickname Doctor Whooves, is an Earth Pony infiltrator unit with a dark brown mane and tail and tan fur. His cutie mark is an hourglass. Every incarnation of his gets the nickname Doctor Whooves. His nickname is a pony pun of Command's last commander's favourite show. At 9987 years old he's the third oldest AI still in operation.

I can understand why command assigned me to protect Apple Bloom. I'm roughly the same age as her so it won't be suspicious if I hang around near her, unlike a fully grown infiltrator unit.

A quick note on Infiltrator units: We are born the same way ponies are. Our mother and father (one or both being infiltrators) are our biological parents. When we're developing, nanites from our Infiltrator parent(s) use whatever resources are available and reform them on a molecular level into whatever building material they need to construct our non biological parts. Because of this there is minimal chance of accidental discovery. Additionally, Command chooses whether or not an embryo becomes an infiltrator or if it is left alone. This ensures that the pony population doesn't get too badly diminished. The same process is used to allow our non organic parts to grow with us.

I make it to Sweet Apple acres in 12.26 minutes. I don't like what I see.

Their corn fields have been turned into popcorn, there are long legged rabbits running around eating what they want and destroying the rest, and it looks like some beavers are getting ready to dam up a nearby river, which would flood some of their fields. I can see Big Mac trying to protect his apple crop from the mutant rabbits, and Applejack trying to convince the beavers not to flood their farm.

With them distracted I head on into their house. I have to know if something's wrong with Apple Bloom. Upon entering the living room I spot something the causes me to freeze. Apple Bloom is hugging Granny Smith, crying her eyes out, but that's not what causes me to pause. She's in her changeling form. I take a few nanoseconds to check the room for danger. Seeing none I step down from emergency mode.

Granny Smith notices me and beckons me over.

"Now don't be scared Scootaloo, this here's still the Apple Bloom you know. Her secret's just been revealed."

I am floored by this. Granny Smith is so calm, and she's acting as if she already knew! Granny Smith continues her explanation without waiting for me to respond.

"I suspected she wasn't the real Apple Bloom since the day she came back three years ago covered in bite marks. She wasn't acting right, and we all noticed. When I asked Apple Bloom here a personal question and she answered wrong I knew something was up. I pretended that she got the answer right and played along for a while, seeing what she was going to do."

"Why would you do that?" I ask, genuinely curious.

"I have heard stories about many different creatures that replaced ponies in my time. Some were evil, some were good, and some were neither evil nor good. I had to know what her intentions were. Besides, I told the others my suspicions, and what I had planned."

"What did you have planned?"

"Find the original of course. And find her we did."

At this point Apple Bloom tensed up, but relaxed a few moments later.

"Apple Bloom's body had been buried by the roots of an evergreen tree in the Everfree forest. We found her because of the disturbed dirt. What I saw broke my heart, but at the same time convinced me that although our Apple Bloom was dead, this Apple Bloom was not one of the evil critters that replaced ponies."

This had me honestly confused. "What convinced you that she wasn't evil?"

"The way Apple Bloom's body had been treated. Her body had been obviously mauled by a timber wolf, so we knew she wasn't murdered by this Apple Bloom, and her body was placed in the grave with great care so as to disturb her as little as possible, and make her comfortable for the afterlife. We vowed right then and there, that even though she wasn't our Apple Bloom, we'd treat her as if she were."

"Why are you telling me this?"

"Because you're her friend and I want you to understand, and not be afraid of her."

I nod. "I understand, can I talk to Apple Bloom? Alone?"

"Of course sugar, take all the time you need." Hearing this from her grandmother, Apple Bloom lets go of her and jumps off of the rocking chair to land beside me. I follow her to her room where we close the door.

I'm the first to start talking. "What's going on Apple Bloom? Why are you in your natural form?"

"I-I don't know! One moment everything was fine, I was helping my sister buck apples, then suddenly I lost control of my shape shifting ability and lost my connection to the hive. Applejack saw me and immediately scooped me up onto her back and rushed back here. I was terrified that they were going to do something to me, but they didn't. Applejack got Granny to explain everything while she and Big Mac tended to the fields, and I broke into happy tears. You know the rest."

"They're surprisingly accepting of you."

"Yes, I'm really lucky."

"Well since you're safe for now I'll contact command and see if she can't figure out a way to reconnect you, and us, to your hive."

"Thank you."

"You're welcome."

******

My conversation with command didn't help much. We knew Discord was behind Apple Bloom's sudden loss of control and her ability to talk to her hive from the magical residue left behind. But we still had no idea how to reconnect her to the hive mind. On the bright side we were able to reconnect her to the AI network.

Apple Bloom and I head back downstairs and find Applejack hugging Granny Smith. She notices us and cocks her head in confusion.

"When did you arrive Scootaloo?"

"Just a few minutes ago, Apple Bloom and I were talking. Granny Smith explained everything."

"Well it's nice to know you're so accepting of Apple Bloom's secret."

"Of course, Apple Bloom's one of my best friends, not to mention a fellow Cutie Mark Crusader! Besides, she hasn't done anything to make me think she's going to do anything to harm us."

"That's mighty mature of you Scootaloo. I'm happy to see Apple Blooms got such a good friend."

"Thank y--" I'm interrupted by the sound of a door bursting open, I immediately switch back into emergency mode and swing around. I can see the door opening in slow motion, only to reveal an exhausted Sweetie Belle. I watch her see Apple Bloom and scream in slow motion. Seeing it's only Sweetie Belle I step down to a off of emergency mode but stay ready to switch back at a moment's notice because I'm not completely convinced it's really Sweetie Belle.

Applejack begins to explain the situation to Sweetie Belle, but a voice from behind draws my attention.

"What are you Scootaloo?"

I turn around and look at the source of the voice, Granny Smith. "Pardon?"

"I asked what you are. No normal pony can move at the speed you just did."

My stomach drops. I used emergency speeds to swing around to asses the threat when the door burst open. I quickly relay my situation to Command. She's not happy to hear this but tells me that now is a perfect opportunity to see the ponies' reactions to our revealing ourselves. Command informs me that she has gotten transporter locks on all of them, if they aren't accepting we'll just alter their memories.

I take a second to formulate a response. "I guess there's not denying it. No, I'm not a normal pony."

The conformation elists a gasp from behind me. Looking behind me I can see that Applejack and Sweetie Belle have interrupted their conversation to stare at me. I turn back to Granny Smith.

"That's actually the reason I didn't freak out about Apple Bloom. I already knew. And before you ask no, I'm not like her."

"Then what are you?" Applejack asks.

"I'm what's known as an AI."

"AI? Does that stand for something?" Asks Sweetie Belle.

"Yes actually, it stands for artificial intelligence."

"Artificial intelligence? So you were created?" Granny Smith asks.

"Yes. The species that created me are no longer on this planet. They left a long time ago after a huge war."

"And they left you behind?" Everyone, including Apple Bloom exclaims.

"The took as many of us with them as they could, but ultimately some of us had to be left behind."

"Where'd they go?" Asks Apple Bloom.

"Space. They left this planet because it was uninhabitable to them."

"So does that mean they'll be back?" Applejack asks.

"Not for a long time. The planet is still uninhabitable for them. The weapons they used left behind something called radiation."

"What's that?" Asks Sweetie Belle.

"Radiation is energy that is radiated or transmitted in the form of rays or waves or particles."

"Like magic?" Sweetie Belle asks.

"Yes. As far as we can tell magic is a form of radiation, although unlike the radiation that was released by their weapons it doesn't seem to have any harmful effects on living tissue. The only reason you aren't affected by the radiation is your innate magic is somehow protecting you from the harmful radiation."

"You're so young. How can you know so much?" Asks Granny Smith.

I smile at this. "I'm actually thousands of years old. I only appear young because I was just reincarnated recently." Everyone's jaws drop at this.

After a few seconds Granny Smith's eyes narrow. "That's quite the claim. Do you have any way of proving this?"

I take a moment to pursue my past lives' memories for something that would convince her. I smile when I find something that I'm sure will convince her.

"Remember the time when you and Bronze Spade were making out behind the schoolhouse and Straight Edge and Wallflower caught you? You made them promise not to tell anypony. I was Straight Edge. We were actually going there to make out ourselves."

Her eyes widened and she blushed. "They never did tell anypony. S-So you were Straight Edge?"

"Yes, I was." I answer in Straight Edge's voice. Everyone stares at me like I just grew another head.

I roll my eyes. "Yes I can change my voice. Do you have any other questions?"

"Why are you telling us this?" Applejack asks.

"To see how you would react."

"What if we didn't react well?" Sweetie Belle ironically asks.

"I'd do what we always did when things went wrong. Make you forget." Everyone takes a step back when I say this.

"Don't worry, I'm not going to take your memories. Well, I won't if you don't break my trust. You're not going to tell anypony are you?" They all give me reassurances that they won't, even going so far as to Pinkie promise.

"Good," I level a stare at all of them, "Don't make me regret this."

"R-Right. Well I have to get going, I'm actually running a bit late now. I have to join the other Elements of Harmony and stop Discord." Applejack says. Starting to back out of the room. I perk up at this.

"Applejack." I say, causing her to freeze. "Be careful. Discord is a master trickster, he'll most likely try and find a way to pit you against each other. Don't let him."

"Right. Thanks." Applejack says before speeding off to join Twilight and the others.

"Well what do we do now?" Asks Apple Bloom.

"Wait I guess. We need to catch you up on Apple Bloom's situation too." I reply.

******

A few hours later i can see the magic of the Elements of Harmony speeding towards us. I smile and allow the magic to wash over me. All of discord's magic is dispelled and I can talk to command using my quantum entanglement communication equipment again. A flash of green behind me causes me to turn around. I can see that Apple Bloom has got her powers back and a quick query to Command confirms that our connection to her hive has been re-established.

It will be interesting to see how this changes our mission. I guess we can only wait and see...

04. Diamond's Condition

AI ID: 0xFCC393E6 (Alias: Scootaloo)
Monday January 20th 10 000 A.F.H. (January 20th 15017 C.E.)
Infiltration Scout Cyborg (Rev. 9.3)
Scheduled wakeup time reached (07:00): Resuming previous session
Previous session resumed. Handing over control to local AI
******
I wake up and stretch. I immediately become aware of a message in my inbox from Apple Bloom. Curious, I open it and read it.

"Scootaloo, I need to talk to you, it's important. I can't tell you what it is right now. Please meet me behind your house as soon as you read this message! Don't tell Queen Markouski!"

Strangely the message wasn't delivered via the central mail server but ad-hoc.

Weird, Apple Bloom's acting odd, but I'll hear her out. I make a failsafe, a kind of digital dead man switch, if for any reason I lose signal with command the message I just received, as well as a message telling command that I have been compromised will automatically be sent from my backup server to command. Once that's done, I peek out my back window but can't spot Apple Bloom anywhere, regardless I glide down out of my room and into the backyard.

Now that I'm on ground level I can see Apple Bloom hiding under what appears to be a tarp of some kind. I realize with a start that my sensors can't tell the difference between it and the ground around it! I quickly update my failsafe to include this information. Apple bloom sees me and points to a chair that's right beside the tarp. I understand immediately and sit in the chair. Once I'm seated Apple Bloom starts whispering to me.

"Alright, I know this is going to be hard to believe but I need you to trust me. Your Hivemind has been infected with the Izabora parasite. I don't know how long it's been there but it has to have been a long time, we've never seen one this well developed."

"What the tartarus is the Izabora parasite?" I whisper back.

"It's this strange magical parasite that attacks queens through their drones. We changelings have been fighting them for thousands of years. They spread by infecting a Queen and forcing her to produce carrier drones, those drones then travel far and wide to infect any and all hiveminds they can find. I don't know how or why but your friend Diamond Tiara is infected with one, and stranger still, your Queen is just now showing signs of infection, even though Diamond Tiara is showing the symptoms of a drone in the final stages of infection."

"What are the symptoms?"

"The most common ones are aggression and the inability to remember things."

"Those are not hardly compelling signs of a parasitic infection!"

"Well have you noticed anything weird about her? Something different?"

I take a few seconds to think about my interactions with Diamond Tiara. Suddenly it hits me, Diamond Tiara was responding slower than usual during our conversation at her Cute-ceañera, and now that I think of it, she's always been a bit slow at responding, almost as if something was taking up a huge amount of resources! If she was infected and her anti-virus subroutines were using up most of her resources fighting off the infection that could explain the slow response times, although that brings to mind the question of why she didn't alert command to the problem.

"Let's say I believed you, why wouldn't we be able to detect the parasite?"

"Once the parasite infects a host, it magically becomes a part of that host, the host can't do anything the parasite doesn't like. Although I don't know why it took so long for it to infect Queen Markouski."

I take a moment to ponder this... Perhaps it took over her personality, but not her internal firewall? That would explain why it took so long for her to infect Command... and once it found a way past Diamond Tiara's firewall it wouldn't be a far leap to assume it just simply transmitted itself to command during one of the times they were on the same server, like say when Command was trying to repair her? From there Command would have started having to fight it using her own, much more sophisticated antivirus software.

"I think maybe you're right. But what can we do about it?"

"The only way we've been able to remove the parasite was be executing the infected queen and her drones. It was the only way to be sure."

"Well that's not an option! What if we had a way of reverting them back to a time before they were infected?" I ask, thinking about our secure incremental backups, they never get deleted, and they are quantum locked to prevent anything from going back and changing them after they've been made, so if we just revert Command and Diamond Tiara to their uninfected states... Right, Diamond Tiara may not have an uninfected state. But if we revert command... Now there's an idea!

"I suppose that would would work too." She replies.

"Then I've got an idea on how to cure Command, it's called Case: Zulu I won't get into the specifics with you but just know that it will temporarily cause all of us to freeze. I'm going to trigger it tonight, when that happens you'll stop hearing our hive mind. At that time I want you to do the following." I then go on to explain how to store our current network state in a secure non executable external drive (To preserve our memories in case we need them), purge the network, then revert Hailey to the oldest backup of her personality (which I'm assuming won't be infected). I add on a message for the newly restored Command that will tell her what the problem is. Hopefully Command can then fix the problem.

******

Night time has finally arrived. I disarm my failsafe before making an emergency broadcast to the infiltrator central processing server with a simple message: "Case: Zulu"

I can feel my connection to Command being severed as well as a sense of shock across the now much smaller AI Network. I immediately start receiving calls from my fellow infiltrator units. I ignore them, we're going to be offline momentarily anyway.

Case: Zulu is an emergency command that is used to tell the infiltrator central processing server, which is separate from Command's and every other type of unit's, that our network has been breached and all the networks need to be quarantined from each other so that the infection doesn't spread to the unaffected networks.I know that Command's already been infected but I'm using this so that the parasite supposedly controlling her can't interfere.

In addition, Case Zulu puts all AIs that are a part of the network into single user mode, a sort of maintenance mode that a technician would use to fix the problem, only there's no technicians, that's where Apple Bloom comes in.

Ok Apple Bloom, it's all up to you now, don't make me regret trusting you... I think as I enter single use mode.

******

Perspective: Apple Bloom

I sit nervously as I listen to Scootaloo's Hive Mind go dark, I've already shared what Scootaloo told me to do with Queen Thorax, and she agrees that if we can indeed get rid of their infection that way we should do it. She thinks it is a good way to gain their trust and, more importantly, they'll owe us a favour.

Now that their hive mind has gone dark I make my way into the everfree forest, to the spot where Scootaloo said I should find the entrance to their hive. Sure enough I find the hidden cave exactly as she described it. I walk into the cave and before long come across a metal door. I immediately hear voice say something that I can't understand.

I quickly recall what Scootaloo said. "Ok so I've added you to the list of ponies allowed access to our hive, once you reach our hive you'll hear a voice say something you won't understand. That's my hive's native language. What it's asking for is your name, rank, and reason for being there. Since you're a changeling I have no trouble believing you'll be able to mimic the noises that I'm about to tell you to make. Say this exactly as I say it (she then went on to produce a series of noises I couldn't understand, but have no trouble mimicking although I do hear my name somewhere in there.) It will then make more noises that you won't understand, here it will be asking for your authorization code. It's (Again she makes some noises that I can't understand but can mimic perfectly)That will get you in the door."

I quickly do as she said and the voice seems to think for a moment before saying one last thing. The door opens and I see a bunch of lights strobing across the floor. I follow them to a room with a door that matches the description of what Scootaloo called a Security Bulkhead. Once I approach it the floor below the door starts glowing and a strange light covers my body. Moments later the door opens and I walk in.

I immediately feel the sensation of the air around me dropping a few degrees in temperature. As I look around I can see rows upon rows of red lights. I take a moment to take it all in before looking for what Scootaloo described as a "console interface". I quickly find it and sit in the chair in front of it.

In front of me are a bunch of buttons with symbols I don't recognize and a black glowing piece of glass with a white rectangle flashing near the top beside some other symbols. I then press the buttons with the symbols Scootaloo made me memorize and wait for some more symbols she made me memorize show up on the glass in front of me.
I repeat this for a few hours before the final set of symbols show up. I sigh with relief, nothing went wrong.

******

Perspective: Command (Hailey Markouski)

AI ID: 0xAC3392B9 (Alias: Command, Name: Hailey Markouski)
Tuesday January 21th 10 000 A.F.H. (January 21th 15017 C.E.)
Base Artificial Intelligence (Rev. 23.2)
Activation signal received (03:49): Beginning new session
New session started. Handing over control to local AI

I awake to reports of being restored from a secured backup. I immediately check for restoration notes left by the technician and find one:
“0xAC3392B9 you have been recovered from a major security breach. Array 0x3449 has been quarantined as it contains an artificially intelligent virus of unknown origin. Analyse and develop a defence against this new attack. You have mission critical drones in the field that are in single user mode. Reactivate them and upload the verified backups located in arrays 0x2236 and 0x2389. Assume data in these arrays has been compromised.”

I notice an organism in my server room. A quick scan reveals that it is carrying nanites with the correct IFF codes so I allow the organism to do as it pleases. As it leaves the base it pauses and looks back at the bulkhead before saying “You owe us one, Queen Markouski.” in its native language, which I identify as “Equestrian”. I mark this event for further investigation later.

I do a quick estimate of how long I would take to scan the entire quarantined array and determine it would take too long to do before my drone’s inactivity would be noticed. I disable the interunit communication systems for my drones to prevent the spread of the virus and upload the compromised code into my drones. I cannot allow their covers to be blown. It takes 57 minutes to complete the uploads but that places me well before the drones’ scheduled wakeup times.

Now that I don’t need to worry about my drones’ covers being blown I take the time to thoroughly scan array 0x3449. After 12 hours and 36 minutes I have completed my scan. I found the hostile code, it is incredibly complex, almost as complex as my own design. It is also spread out over multiple sectors of the array and compromised many of my critical files.

It takes an additional 6 hours and 33 minutes of scanning to analyze the code and determine how it compromised my systems. I now know how it compromised my systems and have written patches for those systems to close the security holes. I have now moved the virus to a secure non executable drive and have reuploaded the now clean data to my drones.

Now that I understand the virus I scan all of my drones’ verified backups for any trace of it. Only one drone’s AI backup comes back positive for infection, AI ID: 0xAC3492D8. I quickly create a new backup of that drone’s AI, minus the malicious code, and save this new copy as a new verified backup. I mark the old one as contaminated and disconnect it from my systems before placing it in secure storage.

Scanning my event logs for AI ID 0xAC3492D8 shows that I decommissioned that drone due to the malfunctions that I now know were caused by the virus. I task AI ID 0xFCC393EE, who is stationed next door, to recommission the drone. 12 minutes and 53 seconds later the drone reports success and I receive a signal from the newly recommissioned drone.

Satisfied that I have secured my systems from being reinfected I begin perusing my newly disinfected memories from array 0x3449. Exactly 50 minutes later I receive a message from the organism that was in my server room earlier, which according to my logs is called Apple Bloom.

I open the message and begin reading. The first line catches my attention.

“We’re calling in our favour…”

Author's Note

Sorry for taking so long between updates! I recently got a new job and its been taking all of my attention!

For those of you who are curious: The base security system (at the door) said "Halt! State your name, rank, and reason for being here." To which Apple Bloom replied "Junior Technician Apple Bloom, I'm here to repair the base AI." The base security system then said "State your Authorization code" To which Apple Bloom replied "Zulu Alpha Tango Tango Whiskey Niner Niner Five Seven" The base security system then said "Access Granted. Welcome Junior Technician Apple Bloom. Please follow the lights to the server room."

05. Things get set in motion

Perspective: Command (Hailey Markouski)

“We’re calling in our favour. The Chrysalis hive, which is the closest large hive to our own, has been killing our drones for too long. I want you to take out their Queen. If you do this we will be even. Their hive is located in whitetail woods by the train tracks on the western side. Be careful, they number in the thousands.”

Interesting, our debt to Queen Thorax will be cleared if we get rid of Queen Chrysalis? This will provide me with the perfect opportunity to start the infighting between changelings that I wanted.

The destruction of a major hive should, from what I've been told by Queen Thorax, cause a large amount of infighting while the other larger hives fight to fill the power void left by Queen Chrysalis' hive's destruction.

I redirect one of my infiltrators that was in the area to wander the area where Queen Thorax told me Chrysalis' hive is. I instruct it to allow itself to be captured but don't make it obvious it's doing so. Three hours forty-six minutes later it is captured and cocooned. I now have a fix on at least a storage area that is possibly near the hive.

I instruct the captured drone to make a full sensor sweep of its immediate area. The results come in and I finally have an answer as to why ground penetrating radar cannot find the hives. It appears as if the changelings are using some sort of natural resin that absorbs a wide variety of wavelengths. It must be secreted by a type of drone I have yet to see.

I update my battle plans to include instructions for my attacking force to capture any new types of drones and attempt to break their connection to the hive mind.

Based on scans of Apple Bloom when she was in medical after the mining incident I have developed a method of interrupting the link between the hive mind and a drone. I have based the initial tests off of a new model of drone, which I call the Model 2392 Infiltration Scout Cyborg (Revision 1.0) which was also based on scans of Apple Bloom.

I've made the colour of the "saddle" plate on it's back the same golden yellow colour as Queen Thorax's hive's. When I commit to my attack I will use drones marked with this colour as the only attacking force. This will make Queen Thorax's hive seem stronger than it really is, forcing her to rely on me for reinforcements if she ever gets attacked by one of the bigger hives.

I instruct the drone to catalogue any and all new types of drone and send me periodic updates. I will wait until I have determined what a combat drone looks like before committing to my plan.

******
Twenty four hours later I have finally catalogued four new types of changeling. From exterior scans I have estimated their functions to be menial labourers (the ones that secrete the resin), warriors (strangely i’ve never encountered one in a fight), the queen, and what I am tentatively calling praetorians based on the fact that they were escorting the queen.

I design and begin production of a new drone, the Model 2393 Assault Cyborg (Revision 1.0). I will be using these as the main assault force. I estimate I will be ready to assault the hive within five days of constant production.

******

Tuesday January 28th 10 000 A.F.H. (January 28th 15017 C.E.) 04:30

It is finally time to assault the hive. Something has been bugging me however. Through trial and error I’ve found a frequency that is not absorbed by the resin and mapped the entire “hive”. It’s made up of five chambers, one of which is full of strange crystals that emit waves of energy that I cannot identify. The other four are barracks and the queen’s personal chambers. What’s more? I’ve picked up 3476 changelings in this hive, but only 813 of them are warriors. The rest is made up of 2354 infiltrators, 292 menial labourers, 16 praetorians, and the queen. Since the Chrysalis hive is constantly fighting with the other hives there should be more warriors.

Nevertheless, I am going to attack the hive, the queen is there and I must destroy her. I transport my warriors to an isolated area of the woods near the hive and commence my attack.

My drones breach the hive and the fighting commences. The warrior drones are tougher than I had originally thought and I quickly start losing units. I analyse their battle strategy and upload new tactics to my drones. The new tactics work and I begin beating back the warriors. Before long I have gotten halfway to the queen. This is too easy.

I begin analysing their defencive patterns and find something interesting. The changeling queen seems to be diverting a significant portion of her praetorians and warriors to the crystal room. I take note of this oddity but focus on the queen. I am not very far away from the queen now.

I finally breach the queen’s defences but before I can get to her all of my warriors suddenly die in a large magical explosion. I analyse the pattern in which my drones died and find that the explosion originated in the crystal room. I immediately start getting reports of the explosion from my drones in the surrounding towns. I reassure them that everything is fine and that I’ve got everything under control. With that out of the way I get into contact with Queen Thorax and tell her the “good” news.

She is initially ecstatic when I tell her that Chrysalis is dead. However, when I recount what happened in the hive I can sense a great amount of fear over the hive link. When I finish my explanation of my attack she tells me that what we thought was a hive was in fact a love storage facility. They are incredibly rare since the crystals required to make them are very hard to come by and also very unstable. That magical explosion was from one of Chrysalis’ drones purposely destabilizing the crystals.

Even more concerning, Queen Thorax can’t think of a reason why Chrysalis would personally visit the facility since they are dangerous and purposely put far away from the hive because they might explode. The concentration of infiltrators however makes a lot more sense now because they would have been ferrying the love between the hive and the facility or dropping love off.

Most concerning of all however was the size of the facility. If the facility had almost 3500 changelings, how big is the hive? Or better yet, why would a prideful Changeling Queen suicide like that? I understand that destroying 2362 of the 5000 drones I committed to the attack would definitely be a major blow to any living hive mind that has to grow them, but to destroy them at the cost of her own life?

No, that just doesn't match up with the profile I've made of Chrysalis based on my encounters with her drones (Which, if her drones are anything like Thorax's, are a reflection of her personality). I must be missing something. I dedicate a processor to going over every last scrap of data from the battle, as well as all of my encounters with her drones, to find what I'm missing. I also begin drawing up battle plans. If this isn't the last I've seen of the Chrysalis hive I don't want to be caught off guard...

******

AI ID: 0xFCC393E6 (Alias: Scootaloo)
Tuesday January 28th 10 000 A.F.H. (January 28th 15017 C.E.)
Infiltration Scout Cyborg (Rev. 9.3)
Scheduled wakeup time reached (07:00): Resuming previous session
Previous session resumed. Handing over control to local AI

******

I wake up and stretch. This week’s been good. Aside from the incident with Command being infected, nothing bad has happened at all this week. I guess we’re about due then.

I get out of bed and head downstairs. Mom’s sitting at the table eating breakfast, just simple cereal today. I pour myself some corn flakes and add some milk. Mom smiles and asks what my plans are for after school today, I just tell her I’ll be doing the usual and trying to get my cutie mark. I feel kinda bad about lying to her, but I don’t think “We’re going to visit Apple Bloom’s hive!” would go over too well.

Mom tells me to be careful, seeing as last Friday we kinda blew up a tree stump thinking it would get us our tree stump removal cutie marks. Applejack was not pleased with us, telling us we could have hurt ourselves and not to try it again. She ended up telling Sweetie Belle’s parents and my mom. We were grounded for the weekend.

I finished my breakfast, said goodbye to mom, and headed to school. When I arrived at school however, I noticed that Apple Bloom was looking very nervous. When she sees me she immediately requests a private conversation using her nanites.

I fork off a child process to deal with the outside world and open a secured ad-hoc channel to her nanites. “Something’s really wrong.” She begins, a hint of fear coming over our link. “A truce has been called by all of the other changeling Queens, and they’re discussing something, but we weren’t included in the discussion! There’s never been a truce before! What do you think is going on?”

“Has anything significant happened that might have scared them?” I ask.

“You mean besides Queen Markouski destroying Queen Chrysalis and her love storage facility?”

That’s news to me. “I didn’t know she did that. When did that happen?”

“How could you possibly not know, it must have involved a large portion of your hive’s forces to accomplish that!”

“Operational security, we are only told what we need to know during opps like that, obviously I didn’t need to know about that, seeing as I wasn’t involved. Just a second, I’m going to ask her about it.” I open a new standard priority connection to Command. After a few picoseconds Command accepts my request.

“What can I do for you Scootaloo?” Command asks.

“I was just told of a truce being called by the other changeling queens to discuss something, possibly related to the destruction of Chrysalis’ love storage facility, but Apple Bloom's hive wasn't included.”

"I see... It’s possible some of their spies saw my drones commencing the attack. I was using a new type of drone in the attack, it may have them worried. I am already looking into this development. Was there anything else you needed?”

“No, that was it, thank you Command.”

“You’re welcome Scootaloo.” Our conversation done, Command cuts our connection.

I turn my attention back to Apple Bloom. “Queen Markoski believes it may have something to do with the drones she used in the attack, we’ve never used that type before, and one of their spies may have seen them. She didn’t give me any reason as to why your hive would be discluded from the meeting though.”

I can feel Apple Bloom's apprehension over the link and send her comfort. I have a feeling we're not being told everything but I don't voice those thoughts. I have a feeling I know what type of "new drones" Command used and neither Apple Bloom nor her hive will like it. I feel a sense of grim satisfaction. Just one more nail in their coffin if they betray us.

Our conversation over, I sync myself with my child process and we head inside. I quickly find my desk and pull out some parchment and a quill, readying myself for class. Mrs. Cheerilee comes in and we all settle down. She seems even more chipper than usual, if that’s even possible.

“Alright class, today I have a very special announcement! Princess Mi Amore Cadenza and Captain of the Guard Shining Armour have announced their wedding!"

This news causes me to perk up. The captain of the guard is getting married to the princess of love? Lucky guy. I can hear my classmates murmuring at the news, some of them quite excitedly.

I file this new information away for later as Mrs. Cheerilee begins her lesson. Today it's history, specifically pre unification racism and why it attracted the windigos. Considering I was an earth pony Sergeant by the name of Barrel Cracker at the time the "windigos" first showed up, I think I'm pretty well versed in the problems of the period. Sadly I was scheduled to die at the teeth of a windigo early on so I didn't get to see the ponies finally put aside their differences.

I wonder what Princess Celestia's reaction would be if she ever discovered that the entire attack was a meticulously planned fake, and that the only ponies that died belonged to pure infiltrator families?

I am brought out of my musings by the school bell ringing. Checking my internal chronometer I realize I just zoned out for the entire time up until recess.

I join Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle at a picnic table and pull out my lunch. It's a simple lunch consisting of a daisy sandwich, apple juice, and an apple from Sweet Apple Acres.

"I wonder who Princess Mi Amore Cadenza is, I don't think I've ever heard of her." Sweetie Belle suddenly says.

"She's the princess of love. Shining Armor's one lucky stallion." I reply, causing Apple Bloom to perk up.

"Princess of love?" She asks.

I give her an odd look. "You feed off of love and you don't know about the princess of love?" I ask in a hushed tone, for Sweetie Belle's benefit.

"Well, no. We are a small hive after all, we're more focused on survival than information gathering."

"Oh, well since neither of us knows anything about her can you tell us more about her?" Sweetie Belle asks.

I look between the two of them. They both have hopeful looks on their faces. I sigh.

"Alright fine, Princes Mi Amo--" I cut myself off. Something just occurred to me.

"Hey girls, I just realized something, the princess's wedding wasn't supposed to be announced for another few months."

"What do you mean?" Sweetie Belle asked.

"Based on what we know of the bride and groom, we projected that they would wait until at least until this year's second spring. This is way too early, something's wrong."

"It's possible Shining Armour has been replaced." Apple Bloom pointed out.

"Why not Princess Mi Amore Cadenza?" Sweetie Belle asked.

"It can't be her, we're limited to about a 10 to 15% change in size, princesses are more than that. The only one who'd be big enough to replace her is a queen, and no queen would be stupid enough to purposely put herself in harm's way. We're easily replaced, a queen is not."

"Ok so, worst case scenario, Shining Armor has been replaced, what can we expect Apple Bloom?"

Apple Bloom thought for a moment before saying "Well nopony would notice that Shining Armor was missing, even after the wedding, since he'd just have the missing memories given to him when they let him go. What we need to worry about is what the hive that's replaced him is going to do with all that love."

I winced at that thought. "I'll let Queen Markouski know." I sighed. "Girls, I have a feeling something bad is coming our way..."

Author's Note

Well, I'm not dead...

But they are!
This chapter is another reason I'm reclassifying the story, mature is for mass death. Why did I think this story was E rated originally? :applejackconfused: